Adventure Notes – The Adventurers 14

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Back at the town, the party takes advantage of their free stay (for life!) at the Stone’s Throw Inn and Tavern run by Thoris Blackoak, the Dwarf who took over ownership from the elderly human, Shadowlock Everspring.

  • With the Mayor (Barus Gravestone) and his daughter (Avalyn Gravestone) both rescued and recovering, the party relaxes in the tattered remains of Spire’s Edge.
  • The Mayor, once recovered from his injuries, interested in learning more about the Bandit’s secret hideout (and how it used an ancient tongue that no one truly knew the exact origins, other than it traced to some form of very ancient Elven like dialect) send out for messengers to Ridgecrest, a major city several days journey on horseback. Sending the sample of the rune that had been found on the chest generated interest in the Wizards and Mages of Ridgecrest who immediately ventured to Spire’s Edge.
  • An investigation into the hidden passage in the Hill began; and it wasn’t long before the Wizards learned of several other hidden passages deep within the caverns that yielded several ancient treasures, including weapons that had a similar type writing as the runes on the chest. None of the Wizards, despite their many efforts of using their own magic to decipher the language were able to successfully do so. Naturally, this generated further interest.
  • Employing guards from Ridgecrest, a line from the hideout to Spire’s Edge, of guards was created to prevent any of the brigands who had escaped, from having any hope of returning or attempting to ambush the wizards as they continued to uncover more things within the hidden cavern that not even the bandits had found.
  • The party in the meantime, cashed in on some of the treasure they’d recovered and split it among one another.
    • Adrian paid a visit to the brothel, where his money went to the goddess he worshiped (and he proceeded to enjoy the donation of coin and time invested to his goddess)
    • Adrian also upgraded his armor, purchasing scale mail.
    • Morsus did not donate to the Temple of Life (his goddess’ temple, still in shambles after the dragon attack) – surely that won’t come back to bite him like it did in the past.
    • While Spire’s Edge has no temple for Nifika, the goddess of Elves and Magic, for which Sephrenia is a follower; she did not donate to any of the Churches or to the city itself. The gods are watching.
  • While in the Stone’s Throw, Thoris Blackoak approaches them, and explains while he’s thankful that the party helped save the Mayor and his daughter from the evil brigands and their nasty plot – he gently reminded them how he had asked them for help finding out what was going on with the poisoning of his people’s water supply in Blue Ridge Mountain. He explains, (again) that he’s heard news that his family, which lives a day and half away to the southwest in Blue Ridge Mountain that something is going on with their water supply; and that he doesn’t have much more information than that. He also explains that unfortunately, he can’t pay them for the job, because all of his money is being donated into helping rebuild Spire’s Edge, but his Dwarven Clan members may be able to pay them if they’re able to help.
  • Adrian visits Avalyn and explains that they are about to depart, and he’s very thankful for the assistance she’d provided in helping locate the brigands and help fight the brigands. Avalyn thanks him and informs him that she has a messenger hawk that she will send to follow them (when it can) and fly messages back and forth, in the event they should be in need of her Clerical powers again.
  • The party attempts to return to the only horse vendor in Spire’s Edge, but the Horse vendor is upset that the party was irresponsible (despite their promise to return the horses) and had lost them – but one of the horses in the stall is identified as one of theirs that they had borrowed.
    • The vendor tries to explain it was one of the few that made it back, but the party insists on getting a discount because they had saved the town. The vendor tries to explain that the majority of his horses (he only has a few, being a relatively small town; and only a few survived not being killed or stolen when the dragon and kobolds attacked the town) – but the party keeps pushing the vendor to the point that he raises his already expensive prices even higher.
    • Upset, the party decides the journey to Blue Ridge Spire is only about two days away; but Don Kannin returns to the Mayor to explain the horse vendor’s behavior and how they’d hoped to get horses to help Thoris Blackoak. The Mayor assured Don Kannin that he would look into the matter and see if the vendor’s prices and arguments were justified.
  • The party heads southwest, based on the map given to them by Thoris Blackoak as to where the cave entrance is. Traveling through the plains, on the first night – they notice a patch of the tall grass is flat, not too far from them.
  • Don Kannin goes into stealth mode to investigate what’s happening and discovers it’s a body laying flat. Morsus attempts to make a booming sound with his voice, to which the body does not respond. Ragnaroc then approaches and notes that it appears to be a dead dwarf. They discover a black shaft arrow with red feathers in the base of the dwarf’s neck, as if it’d been attacked from above.
    • Neither the type of unusual, midnight black wood; nor the blood red feathers can be identified by anyone.
    • Rolling over the body, they see the face is pale white, as if it could have also been poison that killed the dwarf. They also take notice to the badge the dwarf is wearing – a hammer with two hands criss-crossed in front of it; that was the symbol found inside Thoris Blackoak‘s tavern – it was his family or clan’s symbol.
    • Based on the direction his body was laying, it looked as if the dwarf had also been coming from Spire’s Edge, headed back to his mountain home, when he met his demise.
    • Adrian removes the arrow and keeps it, in hopes of using it to identify who might have killed the dwarf. He also summons Avalyn’s hawk to come to his side and passes a message on a parchment in regards to the dwarf’s demise and to give the message to Thoris. In the meantime, the party decided to bury him; but knowing that Thoris’ people believed in Jarisfargen, the God of Earth (and generally favored among Mountain Dwarves), Morsus considered the deceased dwarf a heathen; so while he did help bury the dwarf, he refused to perform final resting rites; so Adrian decided to do it.
  • The party took a short rest and continued onward, and several hours later, spotted a wagon near the base of some rocky hills.
    • Don Kannin and Ragnaroc decided to stealth along and see if there was anyone at the horseless wagon; and Ragnaroc heard something shuffling through the wagon contents and then heard a creature whisper, “I smells flesh!”
    • That was enough for Ragnaroc to assume it was a creature with ill intent, and with a single spell, knocked the creature unconscious. The party quickly ran around it, tied it up and put it in a bag. Using a Cure Wounds spell to bring it back to health, the creature was amazed to see itself alive – and captured, for that matter.
    • The creature introduced itself as Bugull – and though the party had tried to identify the unusual creature, none of which any of them had seen, the tiny creature with large ears, large head, small body, stood no more than a foot or a foot and half tall. When asked if there were others, he tried to hold up his hand (which was tied and in a bag!) and say there were many.
    • The party engaged in some conversation with this simple minded creature, and learned that it left the caves in search for food, because the food resources were poisoned. The party checked the wagon and could see that indeed, the crates in the wagon were all food – food which had been sitting out for about four or five days under the sun and had become rotten. The same amount of time, the party realized, that the deceased dwarf they’d found had also been dead. The wagon was missing the horse that pulled it. They did however, notice that the crates were branded with the hammer and two fists – the same symbol Thoris Blackoak used.
    • The party surmised that the dwarf was in Black Spire’s Edge, telling Thoris of the situation; how it began with the water supply being poisoned, which then bled into the food supply pulling from those poisoned waters. Thoris had probably provided food rations and a wagon and horse to his family/clan member to take back, when it was attacked. The question remained who took the wagon about an hour away from where the body was – and where was the horse?
    • When Adrian drew the arrow that had been in the dead dwarf’s neck, this clearly frightened Bugull, who used his racial ability to Dimension Rift away, making good of his escape.
  • With nothing useful in the wagon the party pressed on and reached the base of Blue Ridge Mountain. Deciding to camp at the base of the mountain for the night rather than risk exhaustion. Unfortunately, a pair of nearby Manticores had spotted the party members long ago and launched an attack as half the party went to sleep.
  • With the ability to unleash powerful quills from their tail, the Manticores did not land on the ground, making it impossible for Adrian, once awakened to attack. However, Ragnaroc, Sephrenia, Morsus and Dan Kannin were able to launch a volley of attacks. The Manticores focused their attack on the one they perceived to be the greatest threat; Don Kannin. He had been hit with enough quills that it downed him, forcing Adrian to use his Lay On Hands to raise him back up. When they had managed to hurt the first one enough, it cried out and it’s mate appeared, renewing the attack, once again nearly taking down Don Kannin. The Ranger, now fed up with being the primary attack for the Manticores; forgoing accuracy for damage, his arrow still managed to strike the second manticore, dealing signficant damage and convincing both, very wounded manticores that it was no longer worth the effort, and as they fled up the mountain top and out of view.
  • The party then collapsed, and rested for the night; far more weary of the dangers that lurked, and realizing, it’d probably been the manticores who at least fed on the horse that had been pulling the dwarf’s wagons; but the manticore quills were different than the unusual arrow; so that still left the mystery of who murdered the dwarf…